The Sunday morning news. [volume] (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1886-1891, 1887-03-13
ooNaRKssMEN ARE HoNEsr.
Congressman william Walter Phelps
States His Impressions.


York Congressman William Walter Phelps
made an eloquent defence of Congressman.
He said :
This is certainly very trying, unless one
is like sherman and Woodford and Tai
mage, who don't care rap what they say ::
aaughter.) 1 wish were back this mo-
ment in Congress. No one listens there,
and man speaks so much better when no
one listens This silent attention with
which you are star ting makes me nervous
I am not used to it. never saw anything
like it ia Washington except last week at
Arlington. went ut there with few
Jersey veterans to place a tablet on the
grave of their old commander. I made
long speech under the trees and in the
snow, yet the vast majority of my audience
never stirred until I was through Nor did
they then. QLaughter,) / wish you had all
been there, gentlemen. (Renewed laugh
ter.) / wish your fascinating chairman,
who always gets what he wants, except
now and then fee, were there now. l
told him would better not come.
'.Think it over" said he, "and you'll
feel better about it,
And did think it over, and am think
}
how / feel, ask DR.. Talmage about the
drunken man he found sitting on the steps
of his Tabernacle. DIR. Talmage takes
every one in, in that Tabernacle; so he
tried to take this man. But the man re-
fused.
81 was thinking 1 would join your
church." he said, ''but the longer think
about it the sicker feel" [Applause.l
Another thing against your President.
He promised to send the last report, that
might see how ought to speak. That is
an envelope that cheerfully suggested a
public document or receivers fee-some-
thing that you get for nothing. [Laughter.]
And when opened the report read: 'sThe
Last Speech of Daniel w ebster before the
New England Society of New York [Con-
tinued laughter and applause
Do you wonder, gentlemen, that I am
forced to say that / feel. like Artemus
Ward, with naked carnibals braDdisning
their spears at his breast, "not dismayed,
but somewhat discouraged Indeed,
nothing encourages me but the recollec-
ton of the heroic sufferings of the Pilgrim
Fathers, and thu knowledge that not a
man who hears me can vote at the Jersey
polls [cheers] and yet, If we can believe
New England orators, the Pilgrim Fathers
never had dinner, and if they never had
q dinner how could they have an after
dinner speech? Or if they had bad
dinner, what kind? But Mr.. Depew can
answer that. For he cannot deny that the
subject was brought to his attention, in the
course Of business, by recent letter of
this purport-:
"To the President Of The Central R01d:
"SIR-They say you great after-dinner
speaker. Will you kindly inform what kind
of speech you could make if you got your dinner
at the Poughkeepse restaurant" Laughter and
applause.
I thought would speak about Congress
tonight. thought it would be a novelty
to this stated audience for man to speak
of anything he knew something about.
Great orators can't afford to do it. Who
ever heard DR.. Talmage speak of religion
And yet he speaks on everything else-the
Brooklyn Bridge, the shop-girl, the Stock
Exchange, and the Devil. Or Depew speak
of railways? Yet who ever made greater
railway success? 8" Labor reduced from
rs to SIS per cent" says the last report.
Why. at this rate there will be no labor at
all on the Central and that's just what his
friends said when he took the road. Well,
one thing is certain, the Vandsrbilts won't
get much work out of Chauncey Zap
plause.]
And our fiery Grady, did he say one word
of newspapersg And yet he has made the
New South he spoke so touchingly Of
made it with the "Atlanta Constitution"
whose weekly has circulation of $4,000,
gentlen en-. And he knows how to run a
paper, too. lie noticed citizen as dead.
The citizen appeared alive! [Laughter.]
Cant correct it, said Editor Grady; =" but
I'll put you in among the births. . [Great
aIaughter.l
want to say two or three things about
Congress. They are the results of personal
observation and are very different from the |
common impression. For these wrong i'm
pressions | think the newspapers are to
blame-our city papers more than our
country ones. For that matter, 1 some
times think that our city papers, as a class,
are singularly out of sympathy with the |
millions of Americans who live off of Man |
haitian Island. 1t was certainly from them |
that got my ideas about Congress. When |
went up to Washington first, some four |
teen years ago, felt sure | was going into |
bad company-t that l should find Congress |
men bad lot, many of them corrupt, a |
majority self-seeking, and nearly all stupid. |
Actual contact soon convinced me OF my |
error. And am here tonight to say that |
I do not know where one could elsewhere |
find. in collection of citizens of the same |
size, larger number of high character |
than in the House of Representatives. |
TCheers.] The papers spoke of gross in
temperance. I found majority of them
men who, conscietiously abstained from all |
intoxicating drinks, while moderation was
conspicuously the rule. have seen but |
two cases of iAtemperance on the floor of |
the House, and these were not gross, and |
were, in measure, excusable.
| expected to find most of the members |
irreligious, dissolute and profane. / don't |
pretend to knew the secret vices of any of |
them-how fortunate, gentlemen, that no
one can know [laughter1 but I
know that as far as their associates can tell I